This week, the House passed the Transportation Equity Act which provides funds for federal highway, transit, and road safety through 2009. This bill seeks to alleviate congestion, promote driver safety, and create millions of new U.S. jobs in the transportation sector.

This bill also includes a provision that I co-sponsored that would give states, including California, the option of allowing hybrid vehicles to drive in High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes without meeting the minimum occupancy requirements.

Up or Down – Just Vote!

For over two years, we have witnessed an unprecedented attack on the Constitution by a select minority in the United States Senate. In an attempt to undermine the obvious intent of our Founding Fathers, Senate Democrats have refused to allow a simple up or down vote on the majority of the president’s judicial nominees. Under current Senate rules, it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster and allow these nominees to be voted on. Unfortunately, breaking the filibuster is something today’s Senate Democrats have refused to do. Did you know that during President George W. Bush’s first term, fewer than half of his circuit court judge nominees were confirmed in the Senate?

The 108th Congress became the first Congress to prevent a judge from reaching the bench by a filibuster. Before this, two centuries of precedent protected the Constitutional process by upholding the separation of powers. In other words, for 200 years, nominees from both parties have been allowed an honest up or down vote. That is, until now. With today’s minority party, partisan shenanigans have replaced centuries of respect. The president’s confirmation rate is the lowest any president has received in the history of our country. This is not only unfair to the nominees but a gross manipulation of the Constitutional process. Our Constitution specifically assigns the power of federal nominations to the president and every nominee has the right to a simple vote. A minority of Senators does not have the right to deliberately hijack the process.

Budget Affairs

Over the past four years, Congress and the president have been successful in defending our homeland, transforming our military, and making historic strides in the global War on Terror. As Congress readies itself to take up the president’s budget proposal in the coming weeks, Republicans want to continue to build on these achievements while promoting policies that produce new jobs and encourage confidence in our economy. We also want to achieve the goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009. In order to do this without raising taxes or cutting funding for our troops and veterans, the president has proposed a responsible budget that is committed to spending Americans’ tax dollars responsibly.

Unfortunately, there is an ongoing disinformation campaign being fueled by the mouths of liberals that is based on un-truths about the president’s budget. One such misinformed fact is that Republicans are cutting into veterans programs in an effort to prevent raising taxes. This is just not true. What is true is that under the proposed budget, America has kept her commitment to our veterans by increasing funding for veterans health care programs with an additional $738 million increase over last year, bringing the total to a record $30.7 billion. Included in the budget are increases in funding for the long-term care of veterans, mental health services, medical and prosthetic research, and the construction of new veteran’s affairs facilities. The president’s budget also requests more than 1,300 additional health care personnel to care specifically for our veterans. You can see from these funding increases that our commitment to veterans remains steadfast and our gratefulness to America’s troops is unwavering. Regardless of what the liberals say, it is possible to pursue a responsible budget while maintaining our commitment to those who have served our country.

Rather Long Goodbye

“Tomorrow night is Dan Rather’s last night as CBS anchorman. It seems like just yesterday he was making up his first news story.” – Jay Leno, NBC’s “Tonight Show,” 3/8/05.